1^ 



m 



1 



NOTICES 

OF SOME 

ANTIQUE EAETHEI VESSELS, 

FOUND IN THS 

LOW TUMULI OF FLORIDA, 



AND m THE CAVES AND BURIAL PLACES OF THE INDIAN TRIBES 
NORTH OF THOSE LATITUDES. 



READ AT THE MONTHLY MEETING 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



JUNE, 1846, 

BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 

If 



NEW- YORK: 

WILLIAM VAN NORDEN, PRINTER 

NO 39 WILLIAM STREET. 



^3 1847. 



NOTICES 

OF SOME 

ANTIQUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



It is known that, prior to 1492, the aborigines of this 
continent, used vessels of clay in cooking such articles of 
their food as required boiling. There is no evidence what- 
ever, to prove that metal, of any kind, had been employ- 
ed for this purpose, in either North or South America, at 
an earlier period. The Peruvians and Aztecks had a 
method of hardening native copper, in the form of chisels 
and other tools, but this metal had never been rolled, into 
sheets, so as to form culinary vessels ; nor had even this art 
of hardening copper extended to the Mississippians and the 
Atlantic, or Lake tribes. Pottery, and pottery alone, ap- 
peared to be the article relied on. Wherever the sites of 
their ancient residence are examined, we find fragments 
of it. Entire vessels of this material are frequently dis- 
covered in their tombs, mounds and teocalli. The highest 
form of this art, on the continent, existed, as is well 
known, among the semi-civilized nations of the south, 
who, at the same time, excelled the other tribes in agri- 
culture, architecture, and their knowledge of astronomy. 
In proportion as we recede from those centres of incipi- 
ent art, the character of the native pottery becomes coarse 
and rude ; and this fact also renders it probable, that the 
state of civilization at those points, was the development 



V 



4 



NOTICES OF SOME 



of a pre-existing ruder art, which the other tribes had also 
possessed ; for it did not diffuse itself among those ruder 
tribes, as it would have done, had they derived the first 
knowledge of it from these centres ; but it left them, as 
they originally were, in the possession of the hunter or 
nomadic branch of it. They still made the simple earth 
kettle out of coarsely tempered clay. In other words, the 
migration, at early periods, and prior to the Aztec period, 
appears to have been to those centres of civilization, and 
not from them, as it afterwards was, and in proportion as 
the Mexican terra cotta and semi-vitrified pottery can be 
traced north, at subsequent periods, (that is, subsequent 
to the centralization of the Indian power in the valley of 
Mexico,) is there reason to believe that our northern tribes 
had a local southern origin. This idea accords with the 
theory which is most reasonable, that this type of civiliza- 
tion was a native development, and not of foreign origin. 

Some of the vessels from South America, as those ot 
Peru, figured by C. T. Falbe, in the Memoirs of the Royal 
Society of Northern Antiquaries, herewith shown, [Copen- 
hagen, 1843,] evince much skill in their composition, and 
no little symmetry and beauty in their form and ornament. 
But there was no tribe in all the central latitudes of the 
continent, so destitute and degraded in point of art, as not 
to have some form of the article, however rude. They 
all made the globular dkeek^ or sand bath kettle, and some 
of them, vases. This remark applies, certainly, in North 
America, to all the tribes on the Gulf of Mexico, and 
along the north Atlantic to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 
northwest from this point as far, at least, as the continental 
summit, which gives origin to the Mississippi river, and 
down that broad valley to the gulf. Indeed, one of the 
surest tests of the existence of an ancient town or village, 
in the great area denoted, is the finding of vessels or 
broken pieces of pottery in the soil. To knead 'a lump of 
clay and temper it with sand, or some silicious or folds- 



ANTIQUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



5 



patrique material, and to dry it in the sun, or bake it by 
heat, appears to have been one of the earUest and simplest 
arts among men. We may regard it as one of the prima- 
ry arts of the western^ as it confessedly was of the eastern 
continent , and its remains constitute at this day, one of 
the peculiar branches of testimony, though not the strong- 
est testimony, by which the early races of the old and 
new world are to be compared. 

In taking up for examination, by order of the Society, 
the specimens of aboriginal pottery, deposited in our cabi- 
net, it is not proposed to make a very extended application 
of the facts. They are as yet, too few and scattered. 
The subject has attracted but httle attention, and our 
means of examination are still too limited. It is believed, 
that the intentions of the Society, will be best fulfilled at 
this time, by some notices of the particular articles on our 
table or shelves, which appear to denote a difference in 
the art itself, as practised among different members of the 
well known generic families of the race, who were at the 
era of discovery and settlement, located north of the 
auLF OF Mexico. 

The principal articles to which your attention is invited, 
were brought to the society, by Mr. James R. Hitchcock, 
from Florida, who obtained them from the small, antique 
mounds bordering the Mexican gulf, in that state. 

They consist of pieces of broken jars, kettles, stewpans 
and a kind of antique porringers, all designed, apparently, 
for use in the domestic economy, and exhibiting a con- 
siderable degree of skill and art, in their construction. 
Some of the vessels are nearly entire, and deficient only 
in having an orifice broken into them. This orifice seems 
to have been broken in at the time of their deposit in the 
mound, manifestly, to prevent their being taken out, and 
thus to ensure their safety in the small, circular mounds 
or barrows from which they were raised. Of others, the 
fragments enable us to determine their size and shapes. 

1* 



6 



NOTICES OF SOME 



All are ornamented with figures of various kinds. Most 
of them were obtained, in March, 1841, from one of the 
minor species of mounds on the Appalachicola bay. Such 
mounds are numerous in that vicinity, and apparently of 
great antiquity. They exist on the margins of streams; 
in the open, pine barrens, and also in the dense, impene- 
trable hammocks, leading to the idea, that the country 
was generally inhabited by tribes, who had fixed habita- 
tions, and were in the habit of making this species of 
ware. Such were indeed the people represented by the 
narrators of De Soto's expedition, to be found here 
in 1539. 

The antiquity of these mounds is inferred from the 
growth of the live oak, on their summits, some of the trees, 
of this species being two or three feet in diameter. On one ot 
these mounds Mr. Hitchcock observed a tree of this spe- 
cies, hollow at the base, which was sufficiently capacious 
to hold five or six persons. The slow growth of this tree 
would hardly justify us, in assigning for the largest of 
these species, a period of less than six hundred or seven 
hundred years from the time of the interments. This 
would indicate the 12th century as the period when this 
art of pottery flourished — a period, it may be observed, 
which corresponds very well, but is a little prior, perhaps, 
to the MOUND PERIOD of the Ohio valley generally. 

These Florida mounds are neither gigantic, like those 
of the Mississippi valley, nor in the teocalli style, like 
those of Mexico. They are generally from thirty to fifty 
feetin diameter, and from twelve to eighteen feet in height. 
They appear to have been, not places of worship, but of 
burial, as is every where proved by the human bones 
found along with the antique pottery. They are construct- 
ed of the rich black soil, or sands of the river's bank, or 
plains; and as many of these plains were subject to peri- 
odical inundation, they originated perhaps, in no other 
motive than to preset ve the localities of their burial 



ANTIQUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



7 



grounds, and a simple desire to prevent the bones of their 
relatives from being washed away, and carried into the 
gulf. 

Similar mounds exist on the St John's and the Ochla- 
waha. In one of these, the skeleton of a very large per- 
son was found in a horizontal position, with a skull of 
great lateral expansion. Around it were the bones of 
others, all in a sitting posture. In another mound two 
layers of skeletons were found, with their heads inclined 
to the centre — the heads being raised, and the feet forming 
the extremities of radii. These facts are derived from Mr. 
Rood. 

The cavities of the skulls presented by Mr. Hitchcock, 
were filled with sand, and were all supposed to have been 
interred in a sitting posture. The bones were so com- 
pletely saturated with moisture, that it required the utmost 
care to raise them. After exposure to the sun and light, 
they acquired the hardness that they now present. All 
the mounds examined by this gentleman were circular, 
and orbicular, with trenches, but these trenches were too 
shallow to admit the supposition that they were ever de- 
signed as works of defence. They arose simply from the 
excavations of earth necessary to cover the bones. In one 
of the barrows on the Appalachicola river he found a bit 
of metal, supposed to be brass, but without any orifice or 
inscriptive marks : also, a piece of galena. There was 
also found in one of the mounds, a clay pipe, of which a 
drawing is submitted. Fig. 14. Some charred tobacco 
adhered in the bowl of this pipe. 

In some of the mounds mentioned, all vestiges of bones 
whatever had disappeared — even the pottery had gone to 
decay, except some small fragments. Others, disclosed 
large quantities of the shell of the conch, oyster and 
clam — the latter of a very large species, and such as is 
not now to be obtained on the coast. These are locally 
called Feasting Mounds. They are not, otherwise, clear- 



8 



NOTICES OF SOME 



ly distinguishable from the Barrows, or Sepulchral 
Mounds, since bones and vessels of pottery, are alike dis- 
closed by both kinds of tumuli. As a general remark, 
the skeletons appear to have been arranged in radiating 
circles from top to bottom, with the feet outwards, and 
heads a little elevated, and the vessels placed beside 
them. Man, in all ages, has been averse to placing his 
dead in positions, where the body is in low or damp places, 
particularly where exposed to immersion in water. Hence, 
the custom of first burying on hills, and afterwards, when 
men began to occupy low diluvial places, the origin of 
mounds and pyramids. This idea, wherever the ancient 
inhabitants of America came from, is indelibly imprinted 
on the character of the mounds and sepulchral monuments 
of North America. 

One of the strongest evidences, in favor of a considera- 
ble degree of art, among the ancient Floridians, is to be 
deduced from the discovery of a potter's wheel, and other 
vestiges of a pottery, mentioned by Mr. Hitchcock, as hav- 
ing been made near the banks of Flint river, in Georgia, 
some years ago. This remarkable fact is stated by him, 
in a letter to Mr. Gibbs, herewith submitted. These ves- 
tiges were found in digging a well, several feet below the 
surface. There were present in the excavation, several 
vessels of pottery, in a perfect state. What is very re- 
markable, is the fact stated, that there was found in this 
Georgian excavation, an unfinished vessel on the wheel, 
as if the catastrophe, by which the labor was interrupted, 
had been sudden and instantaneous ! 

In scanning the specimens of pottery from Florida, I 
have looked very carefully for the striae of the potter's 
wheel, such as are produced by its centrifugal motion on 
the plastic clay, but without satisfying myself of any such 
evidence. Yet it is difiicult to suppose that some of the 
vessels could have been made to rise on the wheel and as- 
sume their present shapes, and nearly uniform thickness, 



ANTIQUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



9 



without the use of this very ancient and simple instru- 
ment. The ware itself, is such an ordinary mixture of 
silex, with alumine, colored incidentally by the peroxide 
of iron, as we see in the ancient coarse Etruscan vases, 
and in tolerably good specimens of the common unglazed 
red pottery. It is quite superior to the akecks, or clay pots 
and vessels, in use by our northern tribes, on the discove- 
ry of the country. Still it is a question of moment, wheth- 
er the Florida pottery had been baked in a potter's oven, 
prior to use. Its full red color, in many pieces of the ware 
actually examined, favors the idea of such a process, as 
it is known that the oxides of iron existing in common 
clay, require an intense, or very considerable and contin- 
ued heat, to impart their color. If such a heat was ap- 
plied to this ware from the Appalachicola, it is certain 
that the process was badly done, as the burning was not 
carried, in any instance examined, quite to the centre of 
the wares where a dark line denotes the defect. In some 
of the pieces, the color is umber or brov/n. In a single 
piece, it is black, denoting that no fire whatever has been 
apphed to this specimen. It is made from a clay having 
fine particles of mica, and tempered with a silicious ma- 
terial, in a state of considerable fineness. Some frag- 
ments are in the condition of a baked black marl. Arti- 
cles designed for coarser purposes, are made from an ar- 
gillaceous earthy mixture, in which there are gross particles 
of common quartz. These, from their abraded look, are 
such as would probably be gathered on a sea beach. 
There appears, among the fragments, no vase proper. 

One of the vessels exhibits the union of a kind of por- 
ringer and a funnel. The purpose of the funnel is 
effected by a hollow, forked handle, through which we 
may suppose the prepared hquid could be poured into 
small vessels without liability to spill it. This care in its 
construction, suggests the idea that the vessel may have 
been used to prepare a precious drink at feasts, or a 



10 



NOTICES OF SOME 



liquid supposed to impart courage to warriors — such as 
the noted black drink of the Muscoges. At any rate, the 
shape of this antique vessel is, so far as we know, pecu- 
liar, and has nothing analogous in the recovered remains 
of Herculaneum, Pompeii, or any less celebrated sources 
of antique earthernware. A drawing of this vessel is 
exhibited. Fig. 15. 

Such are the articles from Florida, to the consideration 
of which this paper is particularly directed. They have 
one characteristic which may be particularly mentioned. 
It is the style of the ornaments upon their exterior, in the 
shape of fillets, circles, half circles, dots, parallels, slashed, 
upright and waving lines, and other geometrical figures. 
These will be best understood by the accompanying 
drawings, numbered from one to thirteen, which are taken 
from the fragments, and exhibit, it is believed, all that is 
characteristic in this respect. 

Geometrical figures and ornaments must be confessed 
to supply a means of the comparison of the knowledge 
and ideas amongst nations, civilized or uncivihzed. 

Some of the curved figures cannot fail to recal similar 
combinations on ancient Etruscan and some other early 
forms of earthenware. This trait is plainly observable 
in the chain border. Fig. 1, which may be described as a 
combination of the letter S, elongated and arranged hori- 
zontally. The dots of the field, containing this device, 
afford a good although very simple relief. In Figs* 7 
and 10, a waved fillet occupies the same species of 
ground. Fig. 2, is a plain border slashed diagonally, 
with a dotted stripe. 

These devices may be regarded as derivative from 
architectural ornaments ; an idea which is still more ma- 
nifest, perhaps, in numbers four and six. Number four, 
consists of three parallel lines, returned at fixed intervals, 
producing a half circle of three concentric lines. Number 
six, consists of an exact semicircle of five concentric 



ANTiaUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



11 



lines separated at regular distances by five parallel lines. 
The relation in the one case, of three ])arallels to three curves, 
and in the other, of five parallels to five curves, is the trait 
which, in each border, gives it completeness and demon- 
strates design. 

In number three, this resemblance to forms early deve- 
loped in the other hemisphere ceases ; or rather, while the 
system of right lines and curves is still apparent, the com- 
bination reminds one rather of the curious principles of 
native architecture, which form so striking a feature in the 
monumental ruins of Yucatan.* This border, if its char- 
acter has been rightly apprehended, is a combination of 
the lines of rigid pillars, and semi circles, placed convex to 
convex, and ornamented in the dot-style of 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 
This feature of the dot, is indeed, it may be said, the 
character one of these borders, or at least tJiat feature 
which denotes their identity of origin. 

So far the devices appear to have been taken from ar- 
tificial objects ; but there are also, a few traits, derived 
from the natural history of the country. Such are, in most 
cases, in the fragments of the pottery examined, the ears of 
the cooking vessels, or those appendages on opposite sides 
of the rim, which are provided with orifices to insert a 
thong or bale, by which these vessels, might be suspended 
over a fire. In figures 11, 12 and 13, copied from frag- 
ments of separate vessels, the heads and beaks of a duclc, 
a gull and an owl, are respectively represented. It may 
perhaps also be thought, that the crowning ornament, in 
border number five represents two plumes, or two separate 
feathers. 

In Fig. 9, there is a combination of segments of circles, 
with ellipses, and right angled lines, inaccurately drawn. 
It is a drawing which exhibits a fixed theorij, without much 
manual art. It is the rudest figure observed. Yet there 



* See Stephens. 



12 



NOTICES OF SOME 



is in it, a character which denotes it to be Sui Generis, 
It is the homogeneous style of dotted ground work. 

The particular type of the design of number eight is more 
problematical, than any of the series. This border would 
seem to represent plates of mail — or, what is nearer at 
hand, and therefore more probable, the cones of the pine 
tree. Each semi-circle encloses six of the scales, or woody 
seed vessels of the cone. To others this may seem to re- 
present a bunch of grapes. 

So much evidence of art in the combination of figures 
to produce agreeable results, would appear to betoken 
no little advance in the tribes, or people, who erected the 
barrows, feasting mounds and sepulchral monuments, from 
which these antique vessels were taken. The art of adjust- 
ing proportions is one of the clearest tokens which a people 
can give of the laws of design. There is nothing, in truth, 
more characteristic of the low state of art, amongst the 
North American Tribes, including the highest efforts of 
the ancient Mexicans, than the want of this principle. It 
seems difficult, indeed, to suppose that the Azteck head, 
could ever have had its exact prototype among the " sons 
of men," and with every allowance for craniological pe- 
culiarities, it is more consonant to reason and observation, 
to account for its excessive acuteness, on the theory of 
bad drawing. 

That pottery was a fixed art, and the business of a 
particular class of society, amongst the ancient Floridian 
and other American tribes, is thought to be evident, from 
the preceding facts. No mere hunter or warrior could 
drop his bow and arrow, or war club, at any time, and 
set to work to fabricate such vessels. The art of adjusting 
the mixture of alumine and silex, so as to counteract exces- 
sive shrinkage, and enable the ware to sustain the appli- 
cation of sudden heating and cooling, is one that requires 
skill and practice. Still more is the manipulation, or 
handicraft of the potter, one that demands continued prac- 
tice. A hunter and a warrior is, it is true, expected to 



ANTIQUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



13 



make his arms and implements, yet there was one branch 
of the requirement, which demanded too much skill and 
mechanical dexterity, for the generality of our tribes to 
succeed in. It was the chipping of flint and hornstone 
for darts, and spear and arrow heads. There was accord- 
ing to Chippewa tradition a particular class of men, 
among our northern tribes, before the introduction of fire 
arms, who were called makers of arrow heads.* They 
selected -proper stones and devoted themselves to this art, 
and took, in exchange from the warriors for their flint heads, 
the skins and flesh of animals. This is related by the 
Algonquins. The Iroquois aflirm that, pottery, was the 
art of the women.t 

With respect to the style of the drawings, above allu- 
ded to, it is the theory of the designs that appears to be en- 
titled to particular notice. The execution is such as re- 
sembles the efforts of clumsy artists to copy good designs. 
And we are at liberty, in examining them, to suppose that 
they denote ancient forms of taste and beauty, lingering in 
the minds of a people, after they had partially retrograded 
into barbarism. Or are we yet in a position to reverse 
this theory, and say that Asia derived its population from 
America, and here are the original vestiges of the potter's 
art? 

That the quality of the Florida pottery itself was quite 
superior, both in composition and manufacture, as well as 
ornament, to the common akick or Indian pot, and onagun, 
or dish of the Atlantic and Lake Tribes, is strikingly 
shown by a large and entire specimen of the black earth- 
kettle of the Algonquins which I presented to the Society 
at one of its meetings last year, and which is now deposi- 
ted on its shelves. See Fig. 16. This ancient relic of 
the earthenware of the hunter period, as it existed imme- 
diately and 5e/bre the discovery, was obtained, many years 



*Algic Eesearches. 
2 



t Notes on the Iroquois. 



J"* NOTICES OF SOME 

ago, from a cave in an island of the straits of St. Mary's, 
Michigan. It was then entire, with the exception of a crack , 
but was easily bound together by fine wire, and placed on 
a metallic tripod, which restored it in shape and size, and 
permitted it to be examined. Some allowances for the rava- 
ges of time and accident must be made, in examining 
this curious vessel of the ancestors of the existing Algon- 
quin race ; but, after making~these, nothing can exhibit a 
ruder condition of the potter's art. It is a coafse com- 
pound of aluminous earth and pounded fragments of sili- 
cious stone and feldspar, without any baking, prior to use. 
It was evidently used, as a retort in a sand bath. Having 
no legs, by which a fire could be kindled under it, the 
fire was evidently built around it, the kettle itself rest- 
ing on a bed of earth or ashes. By inspecting the interior, 
the carbonaceous and hardened remain of liquid food, 
probably boiled maize, will be noticed. This vessel is 
supposed to be two hundred and fifty or three hundred 
years old. 

We thus have, in juxtaposition, the pottery of Florida 
and of the outlet of lake Superior — positions separated by 
sixteen degrees of latitude. They present two conditions 
of the art, which are widely different. If both the speci- 
mens before us were executed by the red race, as is 
commonly supposed, those inhabiting the Florida coast, 
were very superior, as potters, to our northern hunters. 
It may be too early in the actual state of our knowledge 
of this subject, to say more ; and it is best, in the discus- 
sion of a topic which is quite new with us, to leave the 
facts presented to make their own impression. ' 

But a single remark will be added in reference to the 
general question of these vestiges of ancient art in Florida. 
It is the tradition of the Shawanoes, which was recorded 
twenty-five years ago, in the first volume of the Transac- 
tions of the American Antiquarian Society, p. 273, that 
Florida was anciently inhabited by white men. The 
Shawnees, a name which in the translation means South- 



ANTiaUE EARTHEN VESSELS. 



15 



ERNERS, affirm that they formerly lived in Florida, that 
they had crossed a sea or large water to reach it, and that 
their ancestors found vestiges of arts, such as were not 
common to the red men. These ancient inhabitants 
appear to have had the use of iron tools. Stumps of trees 
cut off with such tools they affirm were found by them, 
covered with soil, together with other indications of civi- 
lization. Was the potter's wheel, before spoken of as 
found in Georgia, also one of the remains of this ancient 
civilization ? It is but a few years since the gold diggers 
in Davidson county, North Carolina, in excavating the 
gold debris of a valley, disinterred the remains of a rude 
house, in which was found a stone, excavated in its top, 
with a stone pestle lying therein, such as is used, at this 
day, by the native Mexicans, in making tortillas. Is this 
also to be regarded, as part and parcel of this ancient 
North American civilization ? Or is it a separate type, 
anterior to the going of the Aztecks to Mexico ? 

In 1843, a vase of pottery was sent to Mr. Gallatin from 
one of the larger mounds in the Mississippi valley. It 
has been but cursorily examined ; but is of the dark, 
compact, unburned ware, which " holds a middle rank, 
between the coarse akeek and the first Florida vessels. 
It is about eight inches high. Very similar to this in size, 
shape and material, is a vase sent to the N. Y. Historical 
Society from the valley of the Genesee, by Mr. William 
H. C. Hosmer, of Avon, and now in our cases. Of the 
very interesting Azteck vases and idols brought from Yu- 
catan, by Mr. Norman, and presented to the S6ciety, 
drawings have been executed by Mr. Bartlett ; but the 
subject of these works of art, is one which belongs rather 
to the consideration of the confessedly semi-civihzed tribes 
of that quarter ; and will be noticed in a subsequent 
paper. 



8D 1 2.8 

f1 & 



